April 2020 Hatch-A-Long! All are welcome!

[LilyD]

It hatched out blue! Which I am pleased with. I picked the eggs up myself (about 3 hrs round trip); I'm not sure what went wrong. One was not fertilized, and three made it to about D16 before they quit . Hopefully I'll be able to try again in May. I think my incubators are all spoken for in April, but if I get a window of opportunity I'll definitely be trying to get more eggs.

There is another breeder kind of close by (for midwest standards anyway), but they wont do pick up for me. But she has lavender and isabel Ameraucanas so I might want to order some anyway.

I just got eggs from a breeder 10 minutes away 2 dozen eggs and out of those 16 were infertile the rest are looking okay but just had a quitter on Saturday so now I'm worried.

 

[BluebirdHomestead]

I wonder if you could just use a BBS black (silver based) to make black split to lavenders since the black in either case is not necessarily to the goal since gold based black is a better black? You would probably need to breed to BBS black birds together to get rid of the blue gene first? So much to consider! Could be my fun Ameraucana project . Lots of people up here love the blue eggs and the lavender color is popular everywhere it seems! Meyer hatchery sold their black split to lavender orpingtons this year and I was surprised they were so popular as they dont seem to be very useful unless you're trying to start a lavender breeding program, in which case you probably wouldn't want hatchery quality birds! Another novelty bird, I guess?

At any rate, I love Ameraucanas - I am a sucker for those faces, the eggs, and all of the ones I have met are sweeties.

I think I read that same partridge Ameraucana thread on the breed club's website lol. It seemed like a HUGE undertaking, I wonder how far they ever got with it. I've not seen the Isabels anywhere other than Highland Homestead, but I also havent looked very hard!


Right now for breeding birds I strictly have mutts, but they are a fun bunch of birds and hardy, too, so I think I should get some good chicks from them! And some of them will be frizzle . I wanted d'uccles soooooo badly but my TSC doesnt have a bantam bin . The porcelain ones do almost look purple, which is my favorite color .

I don’t think you could get to lavender that way as when you breed blacks from BBS together, you always get black. Blue is a dilution gene so it comes into play when you breed a black to a blue or splash. If I were going to breed lavenders, I’d just start with good Lavender stock and go from there.

 

[LilyD]

I don’t think you could get to lavender that way as when you breed blacks from BBS together, you always get black. Blue is a dilution gene so it comes into play when you breed a black to a blue or splash. If I were going to breed lavenders, I’d just start with good Lavender stock and go from there.

If you breed a black to a lavender and get black split to lavender and then breed two chicks that are split black split to lavender you will ger 50% black and 25% lavender and 25% split to lavender from that but you would have to breed to a lavender at first to carry the recessive gene so that you can get two recessive lavender carriers.

 

[LilyD]

If you breed a black to a lavender and get black split to lavender and then breed two chicks that are split black split to lavender you will ger 50% black and 25% lavender and 25% split to lavender from that but you would have to breed to a lavender at first to carry the recessive gene so that you can get two recessive lavender carriers.

They actually will often use black birds bred into the lavender lines to improve the lavender feather quality which can get bad since it's a recessive color.

 

[gmjarvi]

I just got eggs from a breeder 10 minutes away 2 dozen eggs and out of those 16 were infertile the rest are looking okay but just had a quitter on Saturday so now I'm worried.

Oh no! Last month it was the Marans curse, hopefully it isn't Ameraucanas this month! Mine quit so late last month, like D16, and I'm not sure what went wrong.

 

[gmjarvi]

I don’t think you could get to lavender that way as when you breed blacks from BBS together, you always get black. Blue is a dilution gene so it comes into play when you breed a black to a blue or splash. If I were going to breed lavenders, I’d just start with good Lavender stock and go from there.

If you breed a black to a lavender and get black split to lavender and then breed two chicks that are split black split to lavender you will ger 50% black and 25% lavender and 25% split to lavender from that but you would have to breed to a lavender at first to carry the recessive gene so that you can get two recessive lavender carriers.

They actually will often use black birds bred into the lavender lines to improve the lavender feather quality which can get bad since it's a recessive color.

Yes getting black birds then breeding them to lavender to get splits was what I was getting at, and exactly for the feather problem reasons. And since lavender breeds true, I probably won't get black splits from lavender hatching eggs since breeders probably aren't using their splits to sell split birds.

My understanding is if you breed black split to lavender to a lavender bird you get 50% black birds (carrying lav gene) and 50% lavenders, and I think doing that every once in a while is enough to alleviate feather problems but maybe it's not that simple.

 

[FortCluck]

I wonder if you could just use a BBS black (silver based) to make black split to lavenders since the black in either case is not necessarily to the goal since gold based black is a better black? You would probably need to breed to BBS black birds together to get rid of the blue gene first? So much to consider! Could be my fun Ameraucana project . Lots of people up here love the blue eggs and the lavender color is popular everywhere it seems! Meyer hatchery sold their black split to lavender orpingtons this year and I was surprised they were so popular as they dont seem to be very useful unless you're trying to start a lavender breeding program, in which case you probably wouldn't want hatchery quality birds! Another novelty bird, I guess?

At any rate, I love Ameraucanas - I am a sucker for those faces, the eggs, and all of the ones I have met are sweeties.

I think I read that same partridge Ameraucana thread on the breed club's website lol. It seemed like a HUGE undertaking, I wonder how far they ever got with it. I've not seen the Isabels anywhere other than Highland Homestead, but I also havent looked very hard!


Right now for breeding birds I strictly have mutts, but they are a fun bunch of birds and hardy, too, so I think I should get some good chicks from them! And some of them will be frizzle . I wanted d'uccles soooooo badly but my TSC doesnt have a bantam bin . The porcelain ones do almost look purple, which is my favorite color .

I'm obsessed with it. I'll take a pic some time and post it. It better be a she!

 

[gmjarvi]

I'm obsessed with it. I'll take a pic some time and post it. It better be a she!

I can't wait to see her!

 

[LilyD]

Yes getting black birds then breeding them to lavender to get splits was what I was getting at, and exactly for the feather problem reasons. And since lavender breeds true, I probably won't get black splits from lavender hatching eggs since breeders probably aren't using their splits to sell split birds.

My understanding is if you breed black split to lavender to a lavender bird you get 50% black birds (carrying lav gene) and 50% lavenders, and I think doing that every once in a while is enough to alleviate feather problems but maybe it's not that simple.

Yes that is correct. The other way they will do it is add a Black Cockerel with great feathering in and then keep the splits that they hatch from that and breed the brothers and sisters back to each other. This will give you about 25% lavender and 25% split to lavender and the rest blacks.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

I posted about these eggs in the March hatch-a-long but they're actually due to hatch on April 4th! I set 10 Crested Cream Legbars and 12 Blue/Black/Splash Marans in my Nurture Right on 3/14.

Probably against my better judgement, I put the two cracked CCL eggs in a separate incubator yesterday so if they make it I'll have a couple more CCLs on April 5th as well. I put a small piece of tape on the egg with the hole and nail polish on the egg with the crack.
After doing my undesirable egg experiment I felt like it was at least worth trying since they will be separated anyway!